The World's Conversion Before the Advent.
LUTHER says: “Some say that before the latter days the whole world shall become Christians. This is a falsehood forged by Satan that he might darken sound doctrine; beware, therefore, of the delusion.” Melancthon says, “The true church will always suffer persecution from the wicked to the end of time, and in the church itself the good and evil will continue blended together.” John Knox says of this world's universal reform: “It never was or yet shall be till that righteous King and Judge appear for the restoration of all things.” John Milton in “Paradise Lost” says—
“Truth shall retire,
Be struck with slanderous darts, and works of faith
Barely be found. So shall the world go on,
To good malignant, to bad men benign,
Under her own weight groaning, till the day
Appear, of reparation to the just,
And vengeance to the wicked, at return
Of Him, thy Saviour and thy Lord.” Matthew Henry says: “As long as the world stands, there will still be in it such a mixture as we now see. We long to see all wheat and no tares in God's field; but it will not be till the time of ingathering,—till the winnowing day come—both must grow together till the harvest.” Cotton Mather says: “Without doubt, the kingdoms of this world will not become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ, before the pre-ordained time of the dead, in which the reward shall be given to the servants of God. They who expect the rest promised for the church of God to be found anywhere but in the new earth, or any happy times for the church in a world that hath sin in it,—these do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the kingdom of God.” George Whitefield says: “Christ's church while in this world will be a bush burning with fiery trials and afflictions of various kinds.”